viernes, 6 de julio de 2012

Call for Nominations: 2012 Partnership in Prevention Award ► Projects | HHS.gov

Projects | HHS.gov



The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has partnered with the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) to create the Partnership in Prevention Award.

The award program intends to recognize prevention leaders in the U.S. acute care community who have achieved wide-scale reduction and progress toward elimination of targeted HAIs. It also intends to showcase the outstanding efforts of clinicians, hospital executives, and hospital facilities who have improved clinical practice through utilization of evidence-based guidelines, achieved and maintained superior prevention results, and advanced best practices to improve patient safety.

Nominations for the award will be accepted through August 1, 2012, and the award announcement will take place October 15, 2012 during the 2012 International Infection Prevention Week.  Eligibility criteria can be viewed on the Office of Healthcare Quality HAI Initiative website.

We invite you to nominate a hospital team.  If you have any questions about the awards, please email the Partnership in Prevention Award team at awards@apic.org.


Projects

The Office of Healthcare Quality funds or supports a number of projects to advance the elimination of healthcare-associated infections by promoting science, recognizing significant achievement at the bedside, and promoting national partnerships and development of infrastructure. These projects include:

Nominations for HHS-APIC-SHEA 2012 Partnership in Prevention Award

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has partnered with the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) to create the Partnership in Prevention Award.
The nature and purpose of the Partnership in Prevention Award is to highlight and promote the work of one hospital that has achieved sustainable improvements based on the concepts of the “National Action Plan to Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections: Roadmap to Elimination” and is helping to achieve the goals outlined by the HHS Partnership for Patients.
Preventing healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) requires a multidisciplinary, team-based approach – involving facility-level executive leaders, clinical leaders, infection control and prevention experts, and others.
The award program intends to recognize prevention leaders in the U.S. acute care community who have achieved wide-scale reduction and progress toward elimination of targeted HAIs. It also intends to showcase the outstanding efforts of clinicians, hospital executives, and hospital facilities who have improved clinical practice through utilization of evidence-based guidelines, achieved and maintained superior prevention results, and advanced best practices to improve patient safety.
Nominations for the award will be accepted through August 1, 2012, and the award announcement will take place October 15, 2012 during the 2012 International Infection Prevention Week.  Additional information, including application instructions and eligibility criteria, can be viewed on the Office of Healthcare Quality HAI Initiative website.
We invite you to nominate your team.  If you have any questions about the awards, please email the Partnership in Prevention Award team at awards@apic.org.
We look forward to seeing the great nominations highlighting the important work you do to prevent HAIs.
Eligibility Criteria (PDF – 317 KB)


HHS-Critical Care Societies Collaborative (CCSC) Awards Recognizes Achievements in Eliminating Healthcare-Associated Infections

For the second year, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, in partnership with the CCSC*, sponsored a program to recognize teams of critical care professionals and healthcare institutions for outstanding leadership to reduce or eliminate healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). The awards recognize benchmark systems of excellence that have reduced targeted HAIs and sustained the reductions for 25 months or longer. The national awards strive to motivate the healthcare community to reduce or eliminate HAIs on a large scale and encourage healthcare professionals, including clinicians, nurses, and hospital executives, to use evidence-based guidelines to improve clinical practice.  The 2012 awards recognize success in reducing or eliminating central line-associated bloodstream infections, or CLABSIs, and ventilator-associated pneumonia, also called VAP.
The awards were announced May 21, 2012 at the American Association of Critical Care Nurses’ National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition Exit disclaimer icon in Orlando, Florida. See the press release for the names of the twelve recipients of the 2012 award. Exit disclaimer icon
*CCSC member organizations include American Association of Critical Care Nurses, American College of Chest Physicians, American Thoracic Society, and Society of Critical Care Medicine.


Technological Innovations for Hand Hygiene Monitoring and Feedback

Adherence to recommended hand hygiene practices by healthcare personnel is the most effective way to reduce healthcare-associated infections. Yet adherence remains low and many hand hygiene improvement initiatives are neither sustainable nor standardized.
The human capital required for thorough and regular hand hygiene monitoring can be overwhelming in terms of time spent monitoring and data entry. Existing technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID) are appealing alternatives since they offer objectivity, can be more anonymous than direct observation, and obviate the need for time-consuming audits and data entry.
However RFID is very expensive to implement even in a single hospital ward. Development and validation of less expensive technologies for non-human hand hygiene adherence monitoring, such as low-power sensor contact tracing, is needed.
The HHS Office of Healthcare Quality, in partnership with CDC is expanding current efforts to develop and validate low-cost methods for measuring hand hygiene adherence via electronic contact tracing. Contact tracing involves the use of wireless devices placed on hand hygiene dispensers, employee badges, and inside patient rooms.
The project will:
  • Validate sensor contact tracing technology in a variety of healthcare settings, including intensive care units (ICUs), non-ICU acute care settings, ambulatory care centers, long-term care settings, and outpatient clinics.
  • Develop and test the impact of various data feedback mechanisms on improvement in individual and ward-level hand hygiene adherence
  • Develop an implementation plan for use of sensor contact tracing technology in various healthcare settings that could accompany current guidelines for hand hygiene in healthcare settings, and
  • Assess the acceptability of this technology among hospital staff.

Flu Vaccination of Healthcare Personnel:  Legal Environmental Review and State Legislative Models

The Influenza Vaccination of Healthcare Personnel (HCP) Working Group of the HAI Steering Committee has begun a project to develop, synthesize, and/or enhance evidence and tools for improving influenza vaccination of HCP.
The purpose of the project is to examine the effect that various policy changes may have on influenza vaccination coverage for HCP. The intended outcome of the project is to have a comprehensive report that identifies the existing policies in each State, allowing for comparisons between and among States, as well as comparisons to model state and federal statutes that may be useful in drafting future state and federal statutes. Collaborations with state and local policymakers, facility leadership, workforce representatives, professional associations, patient advocates, and others will be an integral component of this project.
The project will develop educational materials intended to encourage voluntary influenza vaccination of all HCP. Materials will be disseminated to stakeholders interested in increasing influenza vaccination coverage rates of HCP. The materials will include:
  • A common definition of healthcare personnel,
  • Describe the strategies that facilities have implemented to encourage voluntary vaccination, and
  • Outline the current coverage rates among HCP.
  • A review of evidence-based practice of seasonal influenza vaccination of HCP as it relates to transmission of illness to patients
  • Summarize the literature that addresses the relationship between influenza vaccination of HCP, and influenza disease rates among patients.
The project will then review the legal environment surrounding requirements for influenza vaccination of HCPs, such as requirements for employers to offer vaccination to HCP, to obtain declination forms from those HCP who decline vaccination, or to mandate that vaccination be performed. Federal and state laws, individual facilities’ policies, and judicial decisions will be reviewed.
Upon completion in late 2011, the project will disseminate authoritative, evidence-based recommendations and promotional materials for influenza vaccination of HCP, as well as model language for federal and state statutes on HCP influenza immunization.

Environmental Monitoring and Disinfection of Emerging Resistant Healthcare Pathogens

The healthcare environment serves as a reservoir for acquisition of certain of infections by emerging multi-drug resistant (MDR) pathogens such as:
  • C. difficile,
  • Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, 
  • A. baumannii, and
  • Vancomycin-resistant enterococci,
There is an increasing need to understand the role of the environment in the spread of these pathogens and to develop infection control measures to minimize transmission of these pathogens in healthcare facilities. This project assesses the dynamics of contamination of the healthcare environment and to assess cleaning and disinfection methods to reduce environmental contamination.
Current infection control recommendations are hampered by a lack of data regarding the :
  • Bioburden of environmental surfaces,
  • Relative importance of certain surfaces/practices in transmission,
  • Effectiveness of cleaning and disinfection strategies employed in healthcare settings and
  • Appropriate methodologies for sampling the environment and monitoring cleaning effectiveness.
The goals of the project are to:
  • Establish bioburden of MDR pathogens on healthcare environmental surfaces
  • Establish effectiveness of current cleaning/disinfection methods at reducing bioburden
  • Develop standard sampling, culture, and non-culture methods for assessing bioburden reductions
  • Understand the relationship between environmental contamination and patient population characteristics (e.g. prevalence of colonization, presence of wounds, presence of indwelling urinary or respiratory catheters, etc.).
The data will be used to inform the development of future prevention studies designed to establish the optimal methods for preventing transmission of MDR and other pathogens from the environment.
This project is a collaborative effort between the HHS Office of Healthcare Quality, CDC, and State Health Departments.

Regional Projects 2011-2012

Over the last year, the HHS Office of Healthcare Quality has seen Regional HAI Projects achieve successes in addressing gaps in HAI prevention and develop increased coordination at the state and regional levels in a way is helping to move the prevention needle at the national level. These projects were selected for 2011-12 funding:
Region I - Using Pilot Project NHSN Data to Direct Infection Prevention/Control Interventions in Dialysis Settings
Region I will build on their Year 1 work that focuses on surveillance in dialysis centers. In Year 2, the Region will generate and execute preventive and mitigating HAI interventions in a variety of dialysis settings, based on facility data from Year 1.
Region VI - Toolkit to Support States in the Development of Consumer-Friendly HAI Websites
Based on formative research conducted in Year 1, Region VI will create and pilot a toolkit designed to assist state agencies in the process of implementing a consumer-friendly HAI website to encourage smart healthcare decisionmaking.
Regions VII & VIII - HAI Prevention Training for Healthcare Personnel in Critical Access Hospitals and Long-Term Care Facilities
The two regions will partner to bring an infection prevention training to the area's infection preventionists.
Region IX - Building on Efforts to Strengthen HAI Prevention in Small and Rural Hospitals
In Year 2, Region XI will promote widespread dissemination at the local level of communication tools developed in Year 1 that target infection prevention in California's small, rural, and critical access hospitals.

Regional Projects 2010-2011

In May 2010, awarded regional HAI Prevention Project. Proposals selected for funding used information and data from the national and regional state HAI plans, the CDC review of state plans, the expertise of HAI state advisory councils, and identified activities that could be implemented to address the HAI state/regional gaps.
Projects cascade from one or more specific goals identified in the HAI Action Plan, and address at least one HAI activity areas: 1) capacity building, 2) reporting, 3) prevention, 4) evaluation and 5) communication).
Regional Projects Funded in 2010 include:
Region I: A New England Collaborative: Tackling Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAIs) in Non-Acute Settings
Key Project Elements: Address HAI prevention in dialysis facilities through generating partnerships between state health departments, hospitals and non-acute care settings, and leveraging these partnerships to assess training needs and identifying training resources to address these needs. Click for project update.
Region II: Education and Outreach to Healthcare Providers in Ambulatory Surgical Centers for the Prevention and Reduction of Healthcare Associated Infections: A Pilot Project
Key Project Elements: Assess and develop educational outreach in HAIs for Ambulatory Surgery Centers. Educational programs developed will seek to meet the needs of the diverse population of this Region, to include materials aimed at Spanish-speaking populations, urban and rural communities, and a wide range of socio-economic levels. Click for project update.
Region III: HAI Prevention Collaborative
Key Project Elements: Convene a multidisciplinary group of public health and medical partners to address common gaps in surveillance and prevention of healthcare-associated infections, focusing on multidrug-resistant organisms and C. difficile. Will address capacity building, prevention, and communication through the project activities. Click for project update.
Region VI: Formative research for the development of a consumer friendly website to help decrease HAIs
Key Project Elements: Conduct formative research on the effect of public reporting on decision making, with a focus on consumer decision making. Will also examine security, privacy and legal aspects inherent to healthcare communications. Click for project update.
Region VIII: State Based Training to Implement Healthcare-Associated Infections Prevention Activities
Key Project Elements: Identify communication and training needs and opportunities across this region, which has substantial variability in healthcare-associated infrastructure. Three training meetings will be held to address these needs and leverage these opportunities. Click for project update.
Region IX: Strengthening HAI Prevention Efforts in Small and Rural Hospitals
Key Project Elements: Disseminate best practices and improve communication between federal, state, and local public health agencies engaged in healthcare-associated prevention. This project will focus on small, rural and critical access hospitals, and will aim to understand and disseminate best practices among this demographic of providers. Click for project update.

Healthy People 2020 

Complementing efforts to reduce healthcare-associated infections, Healthy People 2020 includes Healthcare-Associated Infections as a new topic area, including two objectives on healthcare-associated infections:
Healthcare-Associated Infections Webinar
A webinar was held on August 16, 2011 to outline the public health burden of healthcare-associated infections to the Healthy People community. Successful prevention initiatives and tools at both the national and local levels were highlighted by various speakers. View the webinar.
What Is Healthy People?
Healthy People provides science-based, 10-year national objectives for promoting health and preventing disease. Since 1979, Healthy People has set and monitored national health objectives to meet a broad range of health needs, encourage collaborations across sectors, guide individuals toward making informed health decisions, and measure the impact of our prevention activity.
Designing Healthy People for the Next Decade
Every 10 years, HHS leverages scientific insights and lessons learned from the past decade, along with new knowledge of current data, trends, and innovations. Healthy People 2020 will reflect assessments of major risks to health and wellness, changing public health priorities, and emerging issues related to our nation's health preparedness and prevention.

HAI Initiative Evaluation

The purpose of the evaluation is to measure outcomes of the Healthcare-Associated Infections Prevention initiative. The iterative, longitudinal, and comprehensive evaluation will include context, input, process, and product evaluations to measure all effectiveness of the initiative in reducing HAIs nationwide. The evaluation is being conducted by an external contractor.
The goals of the evaluation are to:
1) Record the content and scope of the Action Plan, how it is designed now, and what it will add in the future
2) Provide feedback on how to strengthen monitoring capabilities, and
3) Provide strategic insights from across project, longitudinal analyses, a strategic gap analysis, identifying areas to be covered, and to identify high yield opportunities to reduce HAIs.

Evaluation of the Medicare Hospital-Acquired Conditions—Present on Admission Program

The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (the Act) modified payment for acute care hospitalizations of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries if a complicating condition that could have reasonably been prevented occurred during the hospitalization.  Section 5001(c) of the Act requires the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to identify complications of care that meet the following three conditions:
  1. Are high cost, high volume, or both;
  2. Are assigned to a higher-paying Medicare severity diagnosis-related group (MS-DRG) when present as a secondary diagnosis; and
  3. Could reasonably have been prevented through application of evidence-based guidelines.
In response to the Act, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) developed the Hospital-Acquired Conditions—Present on Admission (HAC-POA) program, whereby inpatient prospective payment system cases can no longer be assigned to higher-paying MS-DRGs on the basis of preventable complicating conditions that are acquired during the hospital stay.
To implement this payment change, beginning in April 2008, CMS began requiring hospitals participating in the inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS) to code all International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9) diagnoses on the inpatient claim as either POA or HAC.  After extensive federal and public input, CMS identified ten HACs as being preventable under accepted guideline-consistent care and targeted these for application of the HAC-POA payment policy.  The evaluation will seek to answer a broad set of research questions to assess the outcomes of the program.
For more information, please see:

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